


make me proud

by thefudge



Category: T.H.U.G., THUG - Fandom, The Hate U Give
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Inappropriate Behavior, Slow Dancing, Villain Crush, but nothing graphic happens don't worry it's pretty tame, trash, u know me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 00:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16902264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: When the kids are stranded at King's house, Starr decides to take matters into her own hands.





	make me proud

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably the ONLY person who a) ships this, b) thought about it. Yeah, I'm nasty.  
> I play around with the events, but this is mostly based on the book, not the movie, but hey, the visual of Anthony Mackie as King deeefinitely helps. *wink*  
> anyway, don't @ at me, this is pretty tame by my standards.

 

The beat is not sick, it’s sickening. Starr feels nauseous as she wobbles down the stairs.

Her Jordans feel too tight. They get sticky too as she steps into spilled warm beer. The two gangbangers push her towards the terrace. They do her the courtesy of not roughing her up.

But she wouldn’t mind if they did. By now, Iesha is getting DeVante and her brother and friends outta here.

Starr inhales the cigarette smoke, the smell of coals burning on the grill. The stars flicker weakly in the night sky, they don’t wanna be a part of this. The backyard is lit by spotlights but they just make the world milky-hazy. She can’t tell faces apart, but she recognizes him because there’s a whole crew of sycophants around him, dumbasses boosting his ego, making him feel like such a man for picking fights with kids.

She knows King won’t hurt her. He wouldn’t dare touch her, cuz he doesn’t want her daddy and the whole neighborhood crucifying him.   

So yeah, Starr doesn’t regret playing bait, because she’s the one who talked Iesha into it. Told her this is how fewer people get hurt. But she can’t say this is a risk-free plan. Matter of fact, it’s the dumbest thing she’ll ever do. She remembers playing Harry Potter with Khalil. They always used to be Gryffindors, but this is some next level recklessness. She’s pretty sure Khalil would disown her if he saw her right now.

She’ll feel bad about it later.

King is sitting in a lawn chair with a woman who is not Iesha in his lap. _Guess they’re not exclusive_ , she thinks with a mean streak. God, she hopes Iesha gets away from this motherfucking snake-

“Now what do we got here?”

Of course he’s already seen his boys hauling her from her behind.

She catches the momentary surprise in his eyes, but it’s quickly replaced by smug satisfaction and a shit-eating grin.

“Little Starr, is that you?”

He signals his lap warmer to move aside as he gets up in one fluid motion.

“Did Kenya bring you over?”

His tone is light, almost friendly, like all those times when he slowed down the car to give her and Kenya a ride back home.

But his eyes size her up coolly because, secretly? Secretly he’s always measured her, always tried to figure what she’s made of. Maverick’s daughter, the apple of his eye.

She goes to that white school, gets good grades, straight-laced kid, always in bed by nine, he knows this from Kenya. Thought for a while she might rub off on Kenya. Knows she won’t get buried in this neighborhood with a baby on her hip. He also knows that any studious bitch like that has ambition. None of these fools around him got ambition. You gotta have a hunger. You gotta want it more than anything.

People like that – they speak his language. She’s more like him than her daddy and she don’t even know it.

Starr lifts her chin.  “Actually, I came to see DeVante.”

His grin widens. Didn’t he just tell ya?

“How’s that now?”

“He’s my friend,” Starr continues undeterred. “I was worried about him.”

“Friend, eh? That’s not the kind of friend you should keep. You a good girl, you don’t wanna mess with no gangbangers, do you?”

She swallows, but doesn’t lower her eyes. In fact, she widens them for effect. “Maybe, but I still care about him. I came to ask you to spare him.”

 _Ha_. She knows he’ll do no such thing. But she’s buying time and she’s not too proud to beg.

“Please,” she adds. “He’s just a dumb kid. He doesn’t know any better. But you do.”

King doesn’t buy her little Bambi act, but he can’t deny he likes to see her putting it on anyway. The way her voice goes soft, beseeching. The way she twists one sneaker against the other, knee lifting slightly. It’s rookie stuff, but again, he appreciates the performance.

“Hmm. You want me to go soft on DeVante? Then you gotta do something for me.”

Starr purses her lips. She sinks her fists into her ratty hoodie. “All right. Name it.”

“Two things, actually,” he says, lifting his fingers. “Number one, no more running your mouth to Five-0. Unless you want me to punish Seven for your mistakes too.”

He can tell she doesn’t like the first thing by the way she clicks her jaw. Her brother is off limits. But she nods. 

She’s gonna hate the second thing.

He smirks. “Number two, you don’t just waltz in here and spoil my mood. This is my birthday. And you ain’t brought me a gift. So the King’s gotta get a dance.”

Her lips part. And close again. She stares at him. “You want me to –”

“Dance with me.”

And finally, she looks like the sixteen year-old she’s trying really hard not to be.  

Hell, he could’ve asked her to dance _for_ him, but he’s not a total jackass.

 

 

He takes her hand, grabs by the wrist really, and drags her towards him.

 

 

Starr would’ve preferred violence. She would’ve preferred a different kind of coercion.

The song is slow, slow and hypnotizing. There’s smoke in her eyes and the other couples melt into the milky-white haze.

King made her take off the hoodie. She feels naked in her tank top and jeans. Especially since his hand is wrapped around her waist, fingers splayed against the thin fabric and she knows he can feel her heart beating like a caged bird.

They sway together to the lazy beat, her back against his chest, her bare arms exposed to his fingers. She’s aware that she’s got goosebumps.

She’s never danced like this before – only seen Kenya and Natasha do it and they always lost themselves in the feeling of body against body, grinding, melding, fusing into something she could never understand.

She’s too alert, too wary to even consider the strange emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Dread and excitement. There’s repulsion too, but it only intensifies the adolescent thrill. He’s a motherfucking snake but she gets it. She gets why so many sisters lose their head over him and his mediocre ass.

King thought it’d be fun to mess with her head, chip away at Little Miss Girl Scout's audacity. But now that she’s in his arms, well shit. She’s only sixteen, but her body underneath those baggy clothes is a fucking meal. He doesn’t let himself think about it for too long, doesn’t let himself describe it, because once he puts it into words he’ll be in trouble.

He lowers his head until it rests in the crook of her neck. He speaks right against her skin, words spilling down her collarbone like heavy chains.

“Does your daddy know you’re here?”

Starr exhales, inhales, tries to make the air go soft, tries real hard not to make it obvious she’s not keeping it together. The tank top feels too tight, she can’t breathe. “Yep. He’s on his way right now with his crew to teach you some manners.”

He laughs low in his throat and the warmth of his breath makes her shiver. “I see you tryin’ to act brave, like you’re not shakin’ from head to toe. I like that. Even when you’re in deep shit, you keep it cool. You got steel in that backbone.”

His thumb follows the column of her spine, snags against the fabric of her top as it traces down, and it’s really hard not to lean into his touch, and she hates it, but it’s the lazy beat, it’s his surreal proximity, his smoky smell, his fingers against her waist, that’s what causing all of this.

She has to remember he treats women like shit, treats them like they’re objects for him to pick up and throw down.

“Wish I had you for a daughter instead. You’d make me proud,” he murmurs against the shell of her ear. “Real proud." A beat later. "I’d take good care of you if you were my girl.”

 _Fuck_ , she thinks ineloquently. He knows what he’s doing and it’s pretty damn terrible, but she can’t deny the strange appeal. It’s like she used to say, hoedom is universal. Guess she’s not exactly impervious.

Still, she can’t let him have this.

She lifts her head, arches her neck until her eyes meet his above her.

“How you gonna take care of me when you’re in prison?”

His eyes harden, turn into glacier pools, but the unbearable warmth between them doesn’t diminish. His grip tightens, mouth snarls, morphs into an angry smile.

“I always find a way,” he replies, surprising her and himself. She practically issued a threat and for some reason he’s allowed the words to leave her mouth.

But it’s the goddamn visual.

The image will haunt him for a long time. Months from now, when he’s lying down in his cell bunk, he’ll look back on this moment and see the tilt of her head over her shoulder, the arch of her neck like she’s a fucking swan, the uninterrupted plunge into her cleavage. Looking up at him with that sweet defiance, offering her throat, inviting him to take a bite.

Little Starr slips through his fingers.

There’s a commotion inside the house. His boys discover DeVante is gone.

King regrets letting go of her. He regrets moving past her to the house. Regrets not dragging her with him, making her responsible, leaving marks on that pretty neck.

She slips away like smoke.

Months later, he’s still thinking of that image. It follows him in the prison courtyard, comforts him at night, tortures him when he’s denied appeal, gives him motivation to bide his time and get his sentence reduced.

After all, ambition is key.

He lies on the ratty mattress, arm under his head, thinking of the arch of her neck, thinking what he’ll do when he gets his hands on her again.

 

 

The black robes are damp against her bare legs. She’s removed her graduate cap and is walking across the lawn to her dad and Lyric who are trying to embarrass her in front of her professors by telling them about that Youtube video where she’s rapping with Seven about the Seven Years' War (pun on seven, of course) because she’s a dork with a history degree now.

There’s only celebration in the air and parental pride. Her mom is taking pictures of her as she walks across the lawn. She needs to capture every single moment of this momentous day. First Carter to go to college.

Starr smiles, rolls her eyes, looks across the lawn to the traffic on the road. Her smile freezes. Her feet stumble. The robe blows against her knees.

She thinks – _no_ , can’t be him. Just a reflection in the window.

The car rolls slowly into traffic and she’s not sure.

Must’ve been a look alike.

Because – he – why would he show up here?

Yeah, he got out of prison early for good behavior (she checked) but there’s no way she’d be his first stop, or his second, or third.

But the flash of his eyes – that instant where she thought the King was watching her, sizing her up in her graduate robes. 

There’s dread and excitement in the pit of her stomach.

The way he was looking at her, like they had unfinished business. 

She doesn't know if she welcomes it or not, but she'll be ready. 

 

 

She's grown up. Filled out, got her white girl degree. 

He won't hold back this time. Won't even hesitate. 

She'll be his next meal. 


End file.
